Home Health Community to Release Landmark Analyses of Medicare Costs and Opportunities for Improved Efficiencies

WASHINGTON, Feb. 27, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Alliance for Home Health Quality and Innovation, a national consortium of home healthcare leaders dedicated to improving the nation's healthcare system by supporting research and education, has announced its Clinically Appropriate and Cost-Effective Placement (CACEP) Project. An unprecedented home health research initiative, this project examines Medicare claims data to determine how the appropriate use of care settings across the Medicare program can result in greater efficiency and reduced healthcare costs.

While an unparalleled release of Medicare claims data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will take place on February 28, the home healthcare community has already undertaken proactive steps to analyze three years of beneficiary claims, including assessment data from post-acute care settings, from years 2007 to 2009. The Alliance and Dobson DaVanzo & Associates, LLC, a leading health economics and policy consulting firm, will produce a series of working papers, projected for release this spring, to address the following questions:

March 2012:

How is home healthcare currently meeting patient needs and providing efficient care?

Can clinically appropriate use of home healthcare enable Medicare savings through moderated use of facility-based care?

April 2012:

How is home healthcare used within post-acute care episode pathways and what impact does this have on Medicare costs per patient episode?

May 2012:

How prevalent are hospital readmissions and what is the potential for home healthcare to help avoid these events?

This comprehensive set of working papers will culminate in the release of a final report in September, which will explore the manner in which home healthcare can help the Medicare program make more effective and efficient use of its scarce resources.

"The Alliance is excited about this opportunity to help inform health policy discussions concerning coordination of care, post-acute care reform and payment bundling," said Teresa Lee, Executive Director of the Alliance. "This study represents our deep commitment to the delivery of high-quality research, and we look forward to the dialogue this comprehensive data analysis will generate among policy makers and our colleagues across the post-acute care continuum."